When an actor stars in a show for many years, it can become easy for viewers to closely associate them with their character. For proof of that, all you have to do is look at the fact that so many people are delighted when they learn that the actors who play certain TV couples got together in real life.
Of course, it may seem silly to associate actors with the roles they play since everyone knows they are paid to pretend they are someone else. However, once people spend hours watching someone act a certain way, it can be surprisingly easy to think of the actor and their character as one and the same.
Since Friends is one of the most successful and beloved sitcoms in television history, it makes sense that some of the show’s fans associate the series’ actors with their roles especially closely. For example, a lot of people assumed that Matthew Perry was easygoing just like Chandler. In reality, however, Perry sometimes was so upset if a joke he delivered failed while filming Friends that he felt like he “was to die”. Similarly, a lot of Friends fans would be shocked to learn one of the show’s stars graduated and briefly worked in the medical industry before they became famous.
The Family Business
During her Friends tenure, Lisa Kudrow brought to life the show’s most eccentric character by far, Phoebe Buffay. In a lesser actor’s hands, Phoebe easily could have become a cartoonish mess that viewers couldn’t stand. Fortunately, Kudrow imbued the character with so much empathy, love, and sincerity that many Friends fans want to be the Phoebe of their group. That fact is all the more impressive once you learn that Kudrow’s path in life was so completely different than her famous character.
Before Lisa Kudrow brought so much joy into the lives of Friends fans everywhere, her family was already having a positive impact on the world. After all, Kudrow’s father is a renowned headache specialist whose research helped push forward the world’s understanding of that sometimes debilitating ailment. Given the laudable role Kudrow’s father had in the world, it makes sense that Lisa originally wanted to walk in her dad's footsteps.
As a young adult, Lisa Kudrow decided to study biology at Vassar College. After graduating, Kudrow went to work in the medical industry alongside her father and as she described when she gave the 2010 commencement speech at Vassar College, everything in Lisa’s life was pointing in one direction.
“I had a job lined up with my father who was a headache specialist — yes, I said ‘headache.’ He’s retired now, but he was a world-renowned headache specialist who mostly did research. I immediately started to work with him on a study concerning hemispheric dominance and headache types. I won’t go into the details, but I could! The important thing was that I was on my way to getting published, then onto a graduate program at whichever very impressive university accepted me.”
Her True Path
Of course, given the fact that Lisa Kudrow is a famous actor, it should go without saying that she ultimately gave up her plans to work in the medical industry. However, anyone who assumes that Kudrow became an actor because she didn’t love applying her biology knowledge would be wrong. During Kudrow’s aforementioned Vassar College commencement speech, Lisa explained her acting career started because other performers weren’t funny enough.
“Then during my senior year at Vassar when I was home for spring break, I was driving around L.A. and heard a promo for a sitcom on the radio. They’d play their best joke from the show and I remember hearing in my head, ‘Oh, God, that’s not funny. They punched the joke too hard, just throw it away, Lisa remember to throw it away when you do it. Why do I need to remember to throw a joke away? I don’t need to remember that.’”
“And so I dismissed it…until after I graduated and was happily doing research with my father at the headache clinic and it happened again and again and again. I’d be watching a sitcom and hear myself saying, ‘Don’t do that. Don’t do that Komedy Walk thing like these sitcom girls do.’ It got relentless and I entertained the idea of being an actress, then moved to justify the idea with, ‘You know, you’re 22, you have no mortgage, no husband and kids — no responsibilities. You have to do this acting thing now.’”
From there, Lisa Kudrow went on to say that her friends and family were very supportive of her decision to pursue even though her college pals were shocked. With the aid of retrospect, it is clear that Kudrow made the best decision for herself.
